Living in the Wild, Wild West!




First things first.  I sang this song throughout the entire trip, and nobody had heard it before.  SO disappointed in my peers, y'all.  Okay, moving on...

 Last week we had the opportunity to travel to Cheyenne, WY for work, and let me tell you - the trip got off to a VERY rocky start.  From the moment the flight took off to the moment we landed there was turbulence.  I don't mean a few bumps here and there.  I mean the flight was so rough that our butts were coming off the seats, our drinks and phones were being thrown across the aisle, and we had to brace ourselves on the seats in front of us so tightly that our muscles were sore the next day.  In the midst of all of this, my motion sickness kicked in and I tossed my cookies into about 3 little paper bags before the flight attendant just gave me a trash bag.  While I was doing that, another passenger was having a seizure (we think) and was lying in the aisle while all the nurses tended to him.  The captain announced that Denver airport wasn't allowing us to land, but we had 25 minutes of fuel, so we will circle the airport and wait.  About 20 minutes later the captain announced that we were running out of fuel and had to go to Grand Junction, which was 30 minutes away.  Now, I'm no mathematician, but something didn't add up there.  After we landed they carried the man off on a stretcher, refueled the plane, and waited out the snow storm.  Yeah, I said snow storm...IN JUNE.  What the what?  After what felt like an eternity we were back in the air, but that 30 minute flight back to Denver may as well have been 30 hours.  We were so unbelievably happy to get off that plane.

After a good nights sleep at our Denver Airbnb, we went to Snooze for breakfast, which was easily the best meal of the entire trip.  Loren made friends with our server, Judy, (maybe fell in love, not sure) but either way we got a free secret menu pancake out of it!  After breakfast we hopped in the Uber and headed to Red Rocks Amphitheatre.  We were just getting out of the city when Abbey announced that we needed to pull over.  The Uber driver took his time, which didn't bode well for him.  If you're keeping count now 2 of the 3 of us have now tossed our cookies in 2 days.  Altitude sickness quickly swept the group and we decided it was best for us to go back to the Airbnb, drink some water, nap, and regroup.  The next day we did make it to the amphitheater, and in that 30 minute trip our Uber driver, Muhammad, fell in love with me.  What can I say?  I still have it!  Everything about Red Rocks was absolutely gorgeous!  We admired all the super fit people as they hopped up and down the Amphitheatre steps in various creative ways while we sipped our Smart Water and gasped for air.  That altitude is no joke y'all!  We got our Uber back to the city, and guess who just happened to be there waiting?  You guessed it, Muhammad, but this time WITH cologne.  Bless his heart.


Once we got to our conference in Cheyenne, we thought things were looking up, but it was 1,000ft higher, and Loren finally succumbed to the cookie tossing club.  3 for 3!  Nailed it!  None of us were feeling our best, but we powered through, determined to have a good time!  The fact that the hotel had just switched to new management 3 days prior to our stay unfortunately showed.  The food wasn't the greatest, there was no hot water left by 6:00a.m., and it only had 1 working elevator, which was not ideal because taking the stairs at that altitude nearly killed us.  Nonetheless we can have fun anywhere, anytime, and in any conditions - and we did just that! 



We went on a group outing to the Terry Bison Ranch, where "Dances with Wolves" was filmed.  We took a train ride around the ranch, fed the bison, broke down, and eventually made it back to eat the bison burgers they prepared for us by a nice, big fire.  The next day we went downtown to get "old timey" photos, and let me tell you - there is NOTHING like all of your coworkers (and boss) seeing you in a bustier and fishnet stockings!  Good times, good times...


Overall it was a really fun trip, and we accomplished quite a bit work-wise.  The opportunity to meet and network with hundreds of people from all over the country is what makes these trips so fun!  Our flight home was as smooth as silk, which was good because none of us could've handled another crazy flight! While I loved visiting Denver and Cheyenne, I was pretty happy to get home to our mountains! 



xo - Kellie

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